First-time house renovation

typeractive

Fevvahz wrote: »

This is a superb thread, but at 147 pages, and several intermingled stories from different people, rather hard to follow!

Yep it is Fevvahz! ...just think how lucky you were to find it now and not 6months down the line . Sadly we'll never be able to take in everyone's views and advice, but keep plodding on and you'll get lots out of it I'm sure.

:beer:

pawpurrs

Feeling a bit fed up! Here, have had no sitting room for weeks and work is progressing at a snails pace! Ripping down lath and plaster ceilings and cleaning ancient beams is no fun whatsoever and the dust is just awfull, no telly and living in a bedroom! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and to top it all DH ex employer owes us thousands that is supposed to be house doing up money and its not forthcoming, have ripped out the storage heaters, and if they dont pay we cant afford the central heating! So fed up, hope all the others are progressing better, On the plus side my new cooker arrives on Tuesday so that is exciting!

stolt

Fevvahz wrote: »

This is a superb thread, but at 147 pages, and several intermingled stories from different people, rather hard to follow!

get yourself a nice cup of tea and read up, nothing on tv anyway. It doest take that long to catch on where everyone is with there projects.

pawpurrs

Love the gabions what a fab idea, where is the best place to buy them and are they expensive, I have a bank to terrace and was going to uae boring sleepers, but these would look excellent!

stolt

pawpurrs wrote: »

Love the gabions what a fab idea, where is the best place to buy them and are they expensive, I have a bank to terrace and was going to uae boring sleepers, but these would look excellent!

I'll probably end making them myself again, did make some around a pond in our previous house and took about 3-4 days to get them all built up using some stainless steel mesh. I have seen companies selling them for about £10-£15 for a 25cm x 25cm box Might be fine if you only need a few but i need appx 20meters.
Then the cobbles, it works out quite expensive but they look great, we used railway sleepers in our front garden in our previous house as we had run out of money to afford the gabions. Really wanted raised flower beds made of them or even raise the lawn on top of them..(missus wanted to raise the lawn on gabions in this garden but it was too much work!)

heres the old pond that i did..looking at the picture folder makes me want another pond:p









we got loads of wildlife in the garden, while looking to find the pics of the gabions i found some of a dragon fly i took near the pond..

ukmaggie45

Didn't get a huge amount done yesterday, as OH's Mum came over for lunch, and SiL and DD. Nice to see them all.

Planted a few more peas and sweet peas at home and then took them in their root trainers to the cold frame at the garden. Broke some more ground using azada and right angle fork in attempt to clear space for some more potatoes.

OH continued working on the base for the shed.

I continued the rake the moss from the lawn task... :eek:

Sat down for a rest with Mum in Law, when there was a sort of whooshing noise and something came low across the garden at immense speed! There was a crunchy noise, and a sparrow hawk had landed in the border - it had been after a pigeon, which escaped. It sat there and looked at me with it's yellow eyes, and I could see the beautiful barring on its breast. About half an hour later it was back - flew across the garden into either the camellia bush or the hedge and flew off with a small body dangling from its talons. :eek: I wonder if it's nesting at the nearby church.

Here's some pictures of the shed base as it is so far.





OH just came in from B&Q where he's been for more ballast, so maybe more base building this afternoon!

Oh, we bought some new garden furniture, here's a pic of the new chairs. They have cushions, but I'd taken them in by the time I took the photo. There's a matching table too. The other 2 chairs are in the living room from lunchtime.

ukmaggie45

stolt wrote: »

heres the old pond that i did..looking at the picture folder makes me want another pond:p

<snip photos>

we got loads of wildlife in the garden, while looking to find the pics of the gabions i found some of a dragon fly i took near the pond..

Wow, that's a super pond - have you got space to build one at your new house? Lovely to have dragon flies. (envy envy!)

stolt

hi maggie, shed base is coming on, the sparrow hawk story was good, in our old garden I had a kestrel or sparrow hawk take down a collard dove above our heads and sat in the bushes ripping the feathers out the poor dove while its little mate sat in a tree and couldnt do a thing. Very big talons and quite long legs, i managed to catch the whole thing on camcorder aswell.

I'd love a pond but they are so much work, and we spend alot of time at great ormand street with our youngest and i wouldnt want to have the worry about cleaning the filters etc, loved the wildlife it brought to the garden, ive grown up with ponds in my garden, with newts and toads and frogs in the garden. I once let my terrapin go in my dads pond, it survived the winter and was the size of a dinner plate after several years, it use to climb out and sun bathe on the edge of the pond.

Well its back to the day job tomorrow, cant say i'm not looking forward to it, if only just for the rest, love being out in the garden but just so much to do and when you only really get weekends and its a mission to get everything done.

Managed to complete the patio today, also got some bamboos in but couldn't do all of them because i have to make the gabions up. Looking good if i say so myself. Run out of weed membrane though which is a shame, probably picked the windiest day and i couldnt get the whole strips laid out without the wind catching them, very hard to do on your own!!!

Took me hours to power wash the driveway down this afternoon, note to self next time put plastic sheets down as i could do something better with my time!!

Oh and the missus painted the fences yesterday, she'll kill me for not mentioning that!!!!

TomsMom

Well done Stolt, you've put a lot of effort into your garden and made a stunning job. Can't wait to see it finished.

stolt

TomsMom wrote: »

Well done Stolt, you've put a lot of effort into your garden and made a stunning job. Can't wait to see it finished.

thanks, yes lots of hours and i cant wait to sit on the patio in the sun enjoying a nice beer. Might even get myself a sun lounger and have a nice kip in the sun:beer:

not far to go now with it, just ordered the mesh for the gabions so they should be here thursday but need to get more weed membrane.